Rule 63
by leoandsnake
Summary: Top Gun, genderswapped and set in the present year. Maverick struggles to overcome her mother's legacy while dealing with her burgeoning feelings for a fellow pilot, and is thrust into the center of controversy in the meantime. Femslash, slash, etc.
1. Chapter 1

_I've been stranded in the combat zone_

_I walked through Bedford Stuy alone_

_Even rode my motorcycle in the rain_

_And you told me not to drive_

_But I made it home alive_

_So you said that only proves that I'm insane_

_You may be right_

_I may be crazy_

_But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for_

- Billy Joel

/

_Drip._

_Drip. _

_Drip._

The ceiling of the aircraft carrier was leaking. This would normally be a source of concern for the two pilots in the hallway, but they were otherwise occupied crouching by the door of Stinger's office and trying desperately to figure out what was going on inside.

"I think she said, 'my Ritalin is more important to me'," Maverick whispered.

"My _children_, Mav. Here -" Goose nudged her out of the way and pressed her ear to the doorknob. "Let me know when your ears pop, okay? We can communicate by semaphore in the meantime."

"Hey," Maverick complained, scooting back a little.

"'I can't do this anymore,'" Goose quoted. "Whoa. Is she -"

At that moment the door opened in Goose's face and she leapt backward, crashing into Maverick, who was so close on her heels that she fell back on the battleship linoleum with a yelp.

"What are you two doing?" Cougar looked between them.

"Uh," Goose said, scrambling to her feet. Maverick followed suit. "Noth - nothing?"

"Whatever. She's expecting you in there," Cougar said, jabbing her thumb in the general direction of the door. "I'll see you guys," she added, disappearing around the corner.

"What the hell was that about?" Maverick said, dusting herself off and zipping up her flight suit a little.

"Lieutenants Bradshaw and Mitchell," Stinger called from her inner sanctum. "Quit horsing around and get in here, goddamnit."

Maverick and Goose exchanged a look.

"Last chance to desert and become Cuban barmaids," Goose offered. Maverick rolled her eyes and they both entered Stinger's office - warily, because she was prone to flinging small objects when angry.

"Well," said Stinger. "I have some bad news."

Maverick shifted her weight back and forth, eyebrows creeping toward each other in confusion. Goose cleared her throat and threw a glance at the door.

"For me, not you," Stinger added. "Cougar just quit."

"Quit what, ma'am?"

"Her job at Steak and Shake. The _Navy_, Goose, you blithering moron. She turned in her wings."

Goose ducked as if expecting said wings to be thrown at her face. Stinger rolled her eyes.

"Anyway, she was the first in line to attend TOPGUN," Stinger said, "and that's all kind of shot to hell now. You two assholes were second."

"We what?" Goose responded. "Ma'am?"

Maverick tipped her head forward and let a curtain of dark hair slide over her face in a half-assed attempt to hide her spreading grin.

"You're going to TOPGUN," Stinger said. It obviously pained her to say it.

Goose looked befuddled. Maverick slid her phone seemingly out of the ether and fired off an all-caps, grammatically sub-par text message to everyone in their squadron: _WERE GOING TO TOPGUN! WHOOOOO! :D_

"Mitchell, what the hell are you doing?" Stinger demanded.

"Nothing, ma'am," Maverick replied, clearing her throat and sliding her phone back from whence it came.

"You know, I knew you were trouble the first time you stepped foot on my deck. Just like your mother."

There was a certain wistfulness to this statement that gave a new and vaguely disconcerting meaning to _trouble_. Maverick missed it, however, because her body was vibrating with excitement and every synapse in her brain was firing the same message wildly. TOP GUN! her very mitochondria screamed.

"So," Goose said, finally seeming to clue in on what was happening. "When do we leave?"

"Tuesday," Stinger said, and launched into a tirade of _blah blah blah your actions reflect on me and if you fuck up I swear I will tear your arms off and make them into soup and feed that soup to homeless people and then pay those homeless people to beat the crap out of you blah blah dog shit Hong Kong cargo plane blah_, all pops and buzzes barely punctuating the massive shield of Maverick's enthusiasm. She hadn't been this jazzed since Lucky Charms had introduced whale marshmallows.

/

Viper was not quite so jazzed.

She had been faxed the final list of who was to attend the academy, and it looked like line after line of mediocrity. _Where did they _get _these girls?_ she wondered.

Yes, they were the best of the best, but by what standards? _She_ had won ten medals, kicked a large amount of Russian ass, and fought in some of the most pivotal air battles of the decade, all by twenty-five.

One name stood out to her, however, and she couldn't put her finger on why.

Jester walked in and poured herself a cup of coffee. Having eschewed sunscreen in her twenties, Jester had aged faster than Viper, who looked alarmingly like Tina Fey - if Tina Fey wore aviators instead of glasses and had spent half her life in a tiny cockpit, barking orders at sweaty men hunched over radar screens.

"Paige Mitchell," Viper threw out.

"Hmm," Jester said, sipping her coffee. "Any relation to Daisy?"

"_That's_ it," Viper crowed triumphantly, throwing the list onto her desk. "Daisy Mitchell. Jesus, it's been forever since I heard that name."

"You flew with her?"

"For years," Viper said. "She had a stubborn streak a mile wide. Paige..." she muttered. "She was only fifteen when Daisy died."

"And now she's following in her footsteps," Jester said. "Watch out," she added in a sing-songy voice, lighting a cigarette.

"I'll keep an eye on her," Viper grunted, adding a note on her iTouch: DEMON SEED TOUCHDOWN: 3 DAYS.

/

TOPGUN was not what Maverick had expected.

Sure, what she had expected was an enormous marble complex with wall-to-wall jets - in other words, her usual patent lunacy - but it turned out to be the opposite of that. It was just a brick building with all of its doors propped open in the June heat, a large stretch of tarmac out back littered with the latest planes, and two big hangars. Driving by the base, you couldn't even see it.

She hopped off her Ducati and waited for Goose, who had driven over in a rented Volvo. Her choice of cars had inspired the pimply teenage girl at the front desk of Enterprise's Miramar branch to refer to Goose as "Edward", for reasons that Maverick had yet to figure out.

Pilots and RIOs were arriving in droves, strolling into the building with the particular fighter pilot swagger that rivaled that of rock stars.

Maverick tried to look as nonchalant as possible. _Damn straight you're at TOPGUN,_ she told herself. _You're a badass. You're like a goddamn WWI flying ace._ _You shouldn't even be excited to be here. They should be excited to have you._

That didn't really calm her down, but it helped somewhat.

Goose finally rolled up and walked over. "Why are you sitting on the curb? And why are you trembling?"

"I was waiting for you," Maverick said. "And I'm high on life. Wanna head in?"

Goose shook her head. "I will never understand how you keep your cool facing death at thirty thousand feet and yet the very idea of walking into a _building_ is giving you the shakes."

"It's not_ the shakes,_" Maverick shot back. "I'm not a diabetic alcoholic. Jeez. Here." She handed her helmet to Goose, who tossed it in the general direction of her motorcycle.

"Since when do you wear a helmet?"

"Since I got pulled over four times in the last two months," Maverick said.

"I just got off the phone with Carl," Goose said, as they walked into the barely air-conditioned main hallway of the academy. "He forgot how to change a diaper. Sometimes I wonder if I'd have been better off marrying some random prehensile mammal."

"Oh, Carl," Maverick sighed.

Once inside the dark little smoke-filled room the pilots had been instructed to crowd into, Maverick took a surreptitious look around. It was a pretty intimidating crowd. She rose onto her tiptoes a little.

"Who -" she said, gesturing at a pilot and RIO pair in the corner. One was platinum blonde, wearing a cowboy hat and chewing something - tobacco? gum? It could have gone either way - and the other had a stack of Silly Bandz on her arm and was wearing a pair of Kanye-style shutter shades that were definitely not regulation.

"Ah," said Goose. "Hollywood and Wolf. Two morons."

"Which is which?"

"The Southern one is Wolf, the asshole is Hollywood. Actually - I know a lot of these girls," Goose added, looking around. "Um - over there, the smarmy blonde, I remember her from flight school..."

Maverick didn't follow Goose's gaze - she was looking at the doorway, through which Viper had just entered.

"She looks familiar," she said, her eyebrows jumping together in confusion, as they were wont to do.

"Who, Icegirl? Oh, you mean Tina Fey over there? I think she's the base commander."

"Where -" Maverick sighed. "Damn. I know her from somewhere. Like..." she bit her tongue.

"Have a seat, ladies," Viper called, breaking up the little circle that had formed around the afore-mentioned smarmy blonde, who was staring at Maverick.

Maverick sat up front, the back of her neck prickling. "Icegirl, you said?" she muttered to Goose, but was interrupted as Viper hit the lights.

/

Icegirl didn't get excited by much.

She wasn't the kind who hollered garbled declarations of jubilation over the comms, or flung herself at her RIO after making it out of a particularly rough battle . Sure, there were times when she was thanking God or whomever was responsible just to be alive, but unfortunately for Slider, she preferred handshakes to bear hugs.

All things considered, though, she had smirked for twenty solid minutes after receiving the news about TOPGUN. Who wouldn't?

Now that she was standing in the actual building, the initial happiness was being slowly replaced by insecure, competitively OCD _I-need-to-win-I-need-to-win _bullshit.

Luckily for Icegirl, she _loved_ that bullshit.

As Slider blathered on about something or other, she caught a glimpse of Goose out of the corner of her eye and hit Slider with a sharp elbow. "Mother Goose."

"Oh, yeah," Slider replied, running a hand through her hair. "Huh. Wonder who she's flying with?"

The answer came through the door a half-second later, and Icegirl almost choked on her own spit.

She was brunette and small - _just your type_, Slider would surely hiss later - with a slim, muscular frame, dark hair falling into her eyes. Half of it was up in a ribbon, the other half doing whatever the hell it wanted, in sharp contrast to the tight, hair-sprayed ponytails everyone else was sporting. Her eyes were liquid and Bambi-wide, some incomprehensible mix of green and blue that twisted Icegirl's intestines like balloon animals.

Slider glanced at her, askance. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing," Icegirl breathed, poker face firmly back in place.

Hollywood swaggered over. "Checking out the competition?"

Slider bit back a comment that was more than likely a play on the first half of Hollywood's sentence.

"Who is that?" Icegirl said, sliding her Navy ring up and down her finger. It was her only visible nervous tic, besides the pen-twirling thing.

Hollywood slid her Kanye shades up and looked the mystery pilot up and down. "Oh," she said, "_ho ho_. That would be Maverick." She looked at Icegirl, as if to gauge her reaction. Icegirl stayed expressionless and lowered her aviators, in case her eyes were giving her away.

"I hear her callsign is pretty accurate," Hollywood added.

Slider snorted. Icegirl said nothing.

"Hey, guys," Sundown said, coming over, her corkscrew curls bouncing in a cheerful way. Chipper tagged along behind her, completing the phalanx.

"Hey," they chorused.

"I _also_ heard she had a nose job," Hollywood said.

"Who, Sundown?" Wolf said, laughing as she entered the circle.

"Hmm?" Sundown said, glancing up from her Blackberry.

"No, Maverick."

"Who's Maverick?" Chipper said to no one in particular.

"Deviated septum," Hollywood said. It was obvious she was speaking directly to Icegirl at this point. "It was doctor-mandated, so the story goes. I heard she broke it cheerleading in high school, or something equally bourgeois."

"Thank you, Ryan Seacrest," Slider snapped sarcastically.

"And there's the Penny Benjamin thing -"

"Have a seat, ladies," Viper called out, cutting Hollywood off, who muttered "I'll fill you in later" to Icegirl.

"We don't_ care_," Slider said.

"I wasn't talking to _you_," Hollywood snapped, slinging an arm around Wolf and heading for the back row.

Slider snorted.

Maverick met Icegirl's gaze suddenly, as if it had just dawned on her that someone was giving her the eye. Icegirl held it for a second and looked away as she took a seat next to Slider.


	2. Chapter 2

"In the technology day and age, when unmanned aircrafts are becoming the norm, there is a thin line standing in the way, preventing the United States military from being dominated by robotics. You are that line."

The surround sound faded out as the informational video cut to black. The lights flicked on. Jester stepped aside and Viper began striding up the aisle.

"You _are_ the best in your field," she said. "Nowadays, girls, that's not saying much."

Maverick cleared her throat. She could feel someone staring at her.

"But we will train you. Over the course of these eight weeks, you will become -"

"Killing machines," Goose muttered. Maverick snorted.

"- better than _the best,_" Viper continued. "You'll be tougher, faster, but you'll know how to work with each other. _That_ is the purpose of this program._ That_ is something a computer can never do - work alongside its fellow pilot, feel their instincts. A computer would not go against the odds to save you."

Maverick wondered briefly if that was a subtle reference to her, then thought, _no, you're being stupid, she probably didn't even hear about that - _

"However, only two of you will walk away with the TOPGUN title. One pilot, one RIO."

Maverick shot a grin at Goose, who looked like she was about to barf.

Viper began to drone about the "rigors and challenges" of TOPGUN, and Maverick zoned out almost immediately. She felt eyes on her neck again and turned.

Icegirl was looking at her steadily, twirling a pen in her fingers. Maverick's heart skipped a couple of beats as they locked eyes, and she turned back around with an uncomfortably warm feeling in her stomach.

"Mav," Goose said as softly as possible.

"What?" Maverick replied, feigning innocence.

"Stop it. What are you doing? Stop."

"I'm just wondering who here's going to have balls enough to really go head to head with me."

"Oh, God, _what?_ We're not ice road truckers, Paige -"

"'Scuse me, ladies," Viper said quietly. She had suddenly appeared before them and had her hand on Maverick's shoulder. "Unless either of you happen to outrank me, I'd recommend staying quiet when I'm talking. No one here is TOPGUN quite yet, excluding myself. Meanwhile, you've got a lot to prove. I appreciate cockiness, but I don't tolerate complacency."

Maverick shot a look at Icegirl, who was smirking broadly.

"Yes, ma'am," she muttered.

"And find some hair ties. What happened to the regulation bun? I swear to God," Viper said, flicking her hand in Maverick's general direction. She turned and addressed the group. "Your first instructional period is tomorrow, oh nine hundred hours, out in the hangar. It will be followed by a hop. Dismissed," she said, and strolled out.

Jester followed after her obediently.

"I can't believe we fucked up already," said Goose.

"Who the hell is _Icegirl_?"

Goose gave her the side-eye. "Uh..."

"Never mind, tell me later," Maverick said, realizing that half of the girls in the room were staring at the pair of them.

Goose took Maverick by the shoulders, turned her around, and steered her out of the room.

/

"Do I look shoulder-y?"

The two of them were loitering outside of the officer's club, waiting for a lull in the music so they could make an "entrance".

"Shoulder-y?" said Goose. "No, you're fine."

"This is why I don't like the dress whites."

"Well, maybe a little, but it's more Beyonce than _Working Girl_."

"But Beyonce has hips to balance it out," Maverick said, tipping back on her heels and giving herself the once-over. "Oh well. Okay, let's go."

The officer's club was like any other officer's club: loud, dark, and full of people in uniforms trying to have sex with people who were not in uniforms. Maverick turned to Goose and beamed widely at her.

Goose returned the smile nervously. She knew Maverick too well. "I think I should sue Snapple," she said out of the blue.

"Why?"

"My Snapple fact this morning was 'the average human swallows seven spiders in their sleep in one year'. I've never swallowed a spider in my _life_."

"How would you know, if it's in your sleep?"

"My mouth's closed when I sleep."

"My mouth isn't..."

"But you'd feel a spider crawl into your mouth. And why would a spider crawl into a mouth? That's not an M.O. that a spider would have, Mav, to get into someone's mouth. And if they got in there they're not going to continue into the esophagus and then walk their dumb ass right into a boiling pit of acid, right?"

"What boiling pit of acid?"

"Your stomach."

"Oh... it doesn't really _boil,_ though, does it?"

"It's hot down there."

Maverick made a face. "Ew..."

/

Across the bar, Icegirl was watching them with a lazy, satisfied expression on her face, like a cobra that had just swallowed a small pig whole.

There was a guy next to her, chatting her up, and as much as she wanted to say "I'm not interested in your dick," put her hand on his face and shove him into next week, it looked better to have him standing there.

She was undeniably curious about Maverick. She knew Mother Goose a little bit from flight school, but Maverick was an unknown variable. Icegirl let her eyes rove over Maverick's body for a moment and didn't even notice when what's-his-face turned to her, realized she hadn't heard a word he just said, and left in a huff.

Slider appeared at her shoulder, beers in tow. "Checking out the competition?"

Icegirl grabbed one and took a swig. "That's the second time today you've asked me that."

"That's the second time today I've caught you staring at her."

Icegirl snorted. "Please."

"I wouldn't blame you. She's cute." She looked sidelong at Icegirl to gauge her reaction. When she didn't respond, Slider threw out, "Well, what do you wager?"

"Bisexual or at least bi-curious with more than three but no more than six gay experiences under her belt," Icegirl said. "But she thinks she's straight and she exclusively dates men."

"Um," replied Slider.

"Trust me."

"I think I'll go say hey to Loosey Goosey," Slider said, nudging Icegirl with her elbow and departing. Icegirl sighed through her nose.

/

Meanwhile, on the other side of the bar, Maverick had become distinctly aware of Icegirl's presence and was taking the opportunity to get a good look at her for the first time.

She was gorgeous - _of course she would be _- in a sharp, clean way, like a show dog. Her pin-straight blonde ponytail was so high on her head it practically defied gravity. She was tall and straight-backed, with such good posture it almost looked uncomfortable and body language that said quite plainly, "I'm the rooster in this henhouse, so sit the fuck down". Maverick let her eyes linger for a little too long on how Icegirl's dress whites had tented slightly in the chest, revealing ample cleavage when she turned to the left, then jerked her attention back to Goose. "So, tell me about this, um -"

"Icegirl?"

"Yes'm."

"Well, she's a great pilot, but I always thought there was nothing really... special? About her flying? I don't know, but she never really takes any risks, it's all by the book. I mean she's incredibly effective that way but sometimes you think it might as well be a robot in the cockpit."

"Huh," said Maverick. "And she's our main competition."

"Yeah." Goose glanced at her warily. "Don't get cocky, though, Mav. She's what they want, remember. They're trying to prove that we're just as good as any robot but we have the human reasoning to avoid technical errors... that's her flying in a nutshell."

"Don't they also want to prove that we have the guts and creativity to take chances or see opportunities that UAV's don't? 'Cause... "

"I guess we'll have to wait and see."

"Mother Goose!"

"Oh, hi, Slider," Goose said weakly. Maverick turned to see Icegirl's RIO, an alarmingly tall brunette girl with an angry jaw. Maverick shrank slightly in fear the way a pug would shrink away from a Great Dane, then experienced a Napoleonic surge of rage and puffed up like a cat that had been stepped on while simultaneously rocking forward onto the tips of her toes.

"I see you still have the same shitty taste in beer," Slider said, glancing at the Budweiser Goose was clutching.

"I see you're still experimenting with human growth hormone," Goose shot back.

Slider laughed mockingly.

"So you're flying with Icegirl now, huh? How sexually frustrating must that be? What are you, her fifth RIO in three years?"

"For your information, we've been flying together for eight months now," Slider snapped, "and we're perfectly happy. _And_ we're going to be Top Gun."

"We'll see about that," said Maverick.

Before Slider could respond, Icegirl appeared next to her. "Goose," she said, smirking appreciatively and putting her hand out. Goose shook it.

"Um, Ice, this Paige Mitchell. Paige, this is Tammy Kazansky... or Icegirl..."

"Maverick," said Icegirl, giving her yet another once-over.

"Yep," Maverick said firmly.

"So," Icegirl said, leaning forward and placing a hand on the bar beside Maverick, trapping her momentarily. "Have you found her yet?"

"Who?" Maverick said, locking eyes with her.

"The pilot who's gonna go _head to head_ with you," Icegirl murmured. "Who has enough balls."

Maverick was quiet for a moment. Icegirl was staring her down, waiting for her to break eye contact. Icegirl's knee brushed her thigh and her skin flushed at the touch. She drew in a breath.

"Not yet," Maverick replied.

Icegirl's smirk widened. "Right."

_So it begins. _

She drew back and turned her attention to Goose.

"We heard about that little stunt with the MiG-31," Slider said. "Not very professional."

"No, but pretty badass, I would say," Maverick tossed back at her.

"Mav," Goose said, seeming to be on the verge of a massive stroke.

"See you around," Icegirl said, and departed with Slider in tow.

"Yeah, I'll see you," Maverick called after them, "we'll see each other -"

"Mav, Mav -"

"Oh shush, Goose."

"Look, they're idiots. They don't know what they're talking about."

There was a pause.

"_Tammy_," Maverick said, "Tammy Kazansky," and they both cracked up.

/

"What about him? Three o' clock, the blondie."

Maverick turned to look. She'd been finding herself glancing Icegirl's way all night and welcomed a distraction. "Ew, he looks like a guy named Blake on a soap opera," she said. "Or a porn star. A porn star named Blake on a soap opera and also he moonlights as a hot gay butler on Masterpiece Theater."

"Lots of guys around here get highlights and stuff," said Goose. "It's California."

"He's so... metrosexual."

"I thought you liked that."

Maverick glared at her. Goose muttered something that sounded like _Penny Benjamin_.

"Oh my god, shut up!"

"I'm just saying..."

"I like manly men. Big... manly... lumberjacks. This guy looks like the original Brawny paper towel guy was gay and he had a baby with the dumb girl from _Three's Company_."

"I'm cutting you off on obscure pop culture references. Buy him a drink. Remember, if you go home alone, you pay my tab."

"What, two Budweisers? Okay, I'll buy him a drink. Wait, hold on, can I do my_ Sexy Bitch_ routine?"

"Please god no."

"Aww, Goose," Maverick said petulantly.

"No. Mav, please -"

"Lemme check," Maverick said, and she walked up to the manager - or at least a guy she assumed was the manager from the way he was yelling managerially at someone. "Hey, 'scuse me," she said, and he turned around. "Do you have a hot mic lying around that I could grab and maybe you could also pipe the instrumentals from _Sexy Bitch _over your speakers when I signal you to?"

He stared at her. "Ma'am?"

"Is that a no?"

"Yes?"

"Yes?"

"No, no."

"Yes no?"

"No. Just no." He hurried away.

"Okay, we'll do this oldschool then," Maverick muttered to herself.

She sidled up to Blake-the-hot-gay-waiter at the bar. "Buy you a drink?" she suggested.

"Uh, I have one," he replied, gesturing at his martini. "But thanks."

"Extra olives," Maverick noted. "You like olives?" _Shut the fuck up and get to the point_, she told herself. "Come here often?"

"Relatively so," he said. "I'm Charlie." He held out his hand.

"Oh," Maverick said, and shook it apprehensively. "Civilian?"

"Hmm," he said, without really answering. "And you?"

"I'm Maverick," she chirped.

He raised his eyebrows.

"I mean my name is Maverick, my real callsign is Paige," she said. "Wait, shit, the other way around."

"Name's Paige, callsign Maverick," said Charlie. "Got it. Well, have a nice night." He stood.

"Hey, hold up -"

"Sorry, Paige, but I'm kind of on a date," he said, and walked away.

"Damn," said Maverick.

Goose appeared by her side. "No luck?"

"Crash and burn," Maverick said, making her hand into an airplane and sinking it straight into the bar with an accompanying _whoooooooomph_ noise.

"He's going into the bathroom, go poach him," Goose said, poking her in the back.

"Yeah, all right!" Maverick said excitedly, leaping to her feet and jogging in that general direction.

"Her name was Chrissy Snow, by the way," Goose called after her.

/

As soon as she walked into the bathroom, a man at one of the urinals let out a little shriek.

"Hey, what the fuck?" he demanded.

"Oh, sorry," said Maverick.

Charlie rounded the corner. "Oh, this is stalking," he said. "I'm officially alarmed by this."

"Hi, I just wanted to let you give me a second chance," Maverick said, "despite your date."

"I'm trying to pee, here!" yelled the shrieking man.

"I don't know about that, Lieutenant."

"You, woman over there!" shrieked the yelling man.

"How do you know I'm a Lieutenant?"

Charlie bit his lip. "Hmm," he said again, evasively. "Listen, I'll see you around, Paige Maverick."

"Wait, hold on," Maverick said, and she grabbed his ass. "Okay, I'm satisfied. See you around, Hmm-ing Charlie."

He raised his eyebrows at her and departed.

"CAN YOU GO NOW?" the shrieking yelling man desperately half-yelled, half-shrieked at her.

But Maverick was already out and on her way over to Goose.

"What's the story?"

"There was butt action."

"His or yours?"

"His, what do I look like, a hooker?"

Goose nodded slowly. "Okay. But he left, so you still have to pay for my beers."

"Fine," Maverick groaned.

She felt someone looking at her and she swiveled ever-so-slightly to the left. It was Icegirl, lurking in the shadows. She made eye contact and held it for a moment, then turned back to Goose.

"Mav," she said warningly.

"What?" Maverick replied, all innocence, and went to pay for their drinks.


End file.
